Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
20 New User Misconceptions about Linux
40hz:
17) Linux represents a specific political viewpoint.
--- End quote ---
Mostly agree with this one, but you can't deny that there is quite a lot of attitude in a lot of linux users, and it can be a pretty hostile place if you don't subscribe to their ideas, just like the Mac camp. Yes, you can obviously run into dsckheads everywhere, it just tends to happen more often when dealing with "niches" (whatever that be software, religion, politics or whatever). Fortunately this situation will grow better as more normal/sane/rational/pragmatic people adopt linux :)
-f0dder (February 24, 2011, 08:11 AM)
--- End quote ---
Boy did you ever hit the nail on the head with that one. :Thmbsup:
But it is true. As more and more regular users begin getting involved with Linux for their day to day computing needs, the pockets representing the "silo & bunker mentality" will, of necessity, go away. I'm already seeing it happen where I am.
The big challenge will be how not to become the new dickhead once the old dickhead gets dragged out from under his rock and shot. The trick is to discard the things from the past that are no longer working or have proven impractical, and retain the things that do work or show promise of working.
The absolute worst thing that can happen is for everything (i.e. the core beliefs and unwritten social contracts) that led up to GNU/Linux first coming into existence just be discarded - and for Linux to embark on a purely technical driven course of action. Because if it does, it will ultimately fractionate and fail.
In order to have a reason to exist, Linux needs to be something just a bit more than a piece of software. Because if it's just a piece of software, we already have plenty of perfectly usable commercial operating systems and apps - so why bother?
Should Linux finally fail, all that will be left to remember it by is the hard work of thousands of selfless and talented people, now sitting around just waiting to be exploited by purely commercial interests. And that will likely be the bitterest pill of all to swallow.
Shuttleworth's already in danger of starting Ubuntu down that road. Let's hope his impatience with consensus building - and his personal need (shades of Steve Jobs!) to feel he has a major development role - despite not being a coder - doesn't pull Ubuntu out of the mainstream community.
Fingers crossed on that. :o
Paul Keith:
Shuttleworth? How about Google's OS :(
Linux will never go away though. You can't Ubuntu Arch or Gentoo. Only make them more user friendlier.
Same thing with GPL and Creative Commons. Someone will use those selfishly to protect their work if they are bound to lose a product like what happened with Netscape.
They won't do it for selfless reasons but you don't kill the hand that will save you.
40hz:
You can't Ubuntu Arch or Gentoo.
-Paul Keith (February 24, 2011, 11:04 AM)
--- End quote ---
Should think not. They're designed and intended for completely different audiences and purposes than Ubuntu.
Same thing with GPL and Creative Commons. Someone will use those selfishly to protect their work if they are bound to lose a product like what happened with Netscape.
-Paul Keith (February 24, 2011, 11:04 AM)
--- End quote ---
Umm...'fraid you lost me on that one. How is it possible for GPL or Creative Commons to protect a work selfishly? Once it's GPLed or CCed, it's out where anybody can get at it. About the only protection they provide is preventing somebody else from subsequently claiming the work as their own and putting it under a proprietary license or standard copyright.
Not that some people haven't tried. :-\
GPL and CC are sort of like putting something into the public domain - but with a string attached that says: "Don't be a pig about this. Play nice."
Paul Keith:
How is it possible for GPL or Creative Commons to protect a work selfishly? Once it's GPLed or CCed, it's out where anybody can get at it. About the only protection they provide is preventing somebody else from subsequently claiming the work as their own and putting it under a proprietary license or standard copyright.
--- End quote ---
Exactly.
It's out where anybody can get it which means kind of like yellow journalism, if you are a big enough company who needs marketshare more than money especially if your software is starting to trail off, you open source or creative commons it.
This doesn't work for smaller brands but like Ubuntu, Firefox and Chrome can set a precedence for how new users might think via adopting the model.
Ubuntu is more explainable in that it was necessary but Firefox for example created this whole it must be open source or we're not going to use it which, as instrumental as it was already to cause less popular OS browsers to be ignored, lead to the opening Google needed to establish Chrome which is basically open source the egg as long as it will allow you to turn the customer into the product and buy your frying pan.
Note that I'm not saying this was definitely the intention, just that this was the result. Kind of like the mass production of the clock leading to less time to pray to God despite it's original intention being to have more time via being able to schedule more prayer time.
40hz:
It's out where anybody can get it which means kind of like yellow journalism, if you are a big enough company who needs marketshare more than money especially if your software is starting to trail off, you open source or creative commons it
-Paul Keith (February 24, 2011, 12:45 PM)
--- End quote ---
Um...no...
Once you GPL something, you relinquish all control of your source and what people do with it. It's a one way thing. You can't un-GPL something later on, or otherwise try to get it back by adding proprietary elements to it. Because those will also fall immediately under GPL if you do. You could create proprietary add-ons I suppose. Some places do that. Or try. But that still doesn't hand control of your originally GPLed program back to you.
If you're saying a company could GPL something and make it free in order to deep-six a small competitor who didn't have deep enough pockets to compete against a free product...well, why would they want to GPL the freebie? Why not just give it away, keep the proprietary license, and then start charging for it once the competitor goes out of business? You don't need to get involved with GPL to do that. Microsoft used a similar strategy to price Novell out of the market after Microsoft released NT Server. They just made the original release dirt cheap compared to Novell and used the opening they created (and what money they did get) to drastically improve NT until it was as good, and later, better than Novell.
-----
FSF keeps saying this, but I guess it bears repeating one more time: The free (as in libre not gratis) software concept as embodied by GPL is a software development model. It's not a marketing strategy. And it's most definitely not a business model.
Once you stop trying to turn GPL into something it's not - or apply it to something it's not designed for - it all starts to make perfect sense.
People who can't see that GPL, by itself, has nothing to do with running a software business keep looking for the trick, or the 'catch', or a loophole.
There isn't any. What you see is what it is.
GPL something and it's code is no longer yours. You've given it away to the entire World. Forever.
:)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version